Community Pharmacy in Nigeria: A Skeletal View
by Olusanya Akanmu
The community pharmacy is a really interesting place to work as a young pharmacist. You feel Nigeria is already stressing you in unimaginable ways, being a community pharmacist is like adding another luggage to a yoke of mental stress (my thoughts and prayers are with you if you’re also an Arsenal fan and single).
There are many things to contend with: the meagre pay, the unrealistic targets from your difficult boss (the worst even deduct from your thin salary), the nurses that come to ask for a discount when they purchase injectables worth #240 (I wouldn’t blame them though, Sapa is more real than we all thought); the doctors who prescribe diazepam injection on phone (Sir, there are so many Dr. Olanrewajus in this universe and I’m sorry I’m a little too busy to come to check your hospital down the road), and the nasty customers (yes, I saved the best, sorry, the worst for last).
Even though you took communication courses in pharmacy school (you might have crammed the sh*t just like I did though), it feels like you we weren’t prepared enough for these people.
As a pharmacist, managing clients/customers in a community pharmacy is an extreme sport. This is because you recognise that the closest interaction many people have with the profession is with you, and many of them would define pharmacists based on the ethics you exude. So you get yourself prepared daily to give lectures like how silly (you might need some euphemism here) it is to use only two doses of an antibiotic supposed to last seven days, how the concurrent use of Tadalafil and Nitroglycerin by that sixty-year-old man is contraindicated (Sir, we know your son who is a doctor in the UK prescribed it but we don’t want to lose you yet, at least not on a hotel bed).
If you’re a lady, you need to lecture and remind your clients that not every woman in a lab coat is a nurse. Then, you might occasionally have to explain how not giving your number to every customer who asks like your male colleague isn’t rude.
Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of client management is creating a balance between maximising profits without compromising therapy. In a country like Nigeria where price, is almost always the determining factor, it becomes a more critical subject. For instance, our understanding of bioequivalence and brand equity as pharmacists enables us to know that whether there is an available alternative (when clients cannot afford the cost) or not.
In conclusion, a community affords the young pharmacist such a unique experience, and it is undoubtedly a worthwhile career path. A great deal of patience, courtesy, and astute professionalism is required of a community pharmacist to achieve customers’ satisfaction and business.
